9/6 - Brisbane; Cats, Views, Pizza and Chocolate.

9/6/2012 - Iain and Di suggested driving to New Farm Park in Brisbane and catching one of the City Cats to boat on over to the South Bank for 2 hours of shopping, lunch, and photo ops.

What a GREAT suggestion!!!

Driving to Brisbane is interesting.  I like the Skyline - even just this bit of it.






Getting to the Park required a couple of 'dipsy doodles' because we weren't in the correct lane at the correct time.  The park is nice - I believe it was a prison early on and then they tore that down and made a race track.

 Parking is free around the the central area.

The section of the park next to the Brisbane River is comfortable and spacious so people can relax.

The City Cats are very cool catamarans and they zip in and out of each of their docks quickly, unloading and loading passengers efficiently.

$4.50 per person allows 2 hours of travel... you need to be back on board at the end of your 2 hours and you don't need to pay again.

The view changed in an amazing way... from this duck...

to the cliff, to the bridge, to the huge apartment / shopping complexes, to the University, and gardens.












Iain mentioned that the South Bank had nice shops and restaurants so that's where we got off.


 And we found a wonderful pizza place, La Via, to enjoy a libation (haven't seen small coke bottles in ages) and a couple of tasty pizzas.

This establishment is a Greek owned Italian place.

The pizza I had was a Wagyu bresaola, roasted garlic, truffle oil, and Parmesan pizza - OMG, was it good!

Wagyu beef is popular here and Iain & Di had Wagyu sausages (that I forgot to mention...) WOW were they good!

Lee had the Prosciutto, Shrimp, & Parmesan... mmmmmm!

We wandered back through the shopping area and found the best chocolate shop EVER!!! 


I want to go back there and try EVERYTHING! 







And we had a "Suckao" (pronounced suck-KOW)...






Oh, baby... these are so good! 

Heated by a candle, there is a small container with milk and you get another little pitcher of milk plus a lot of chocolate chips - your choice of dark, milk, or white.  You add as many chips and stir with the straw/spoon and continue until you get your chocolate fix.


  We had a Hokey Pokey Ice cream cone by the City cat dock and jumped on - a couple of minutes late... Lee told the operator we were cutting it close and he said, all was good and didn't charge us for extra tickets.  That was nice of him.   Lots and lots of nice people live in this country and we've met many of them!

We got back to the car and drove back to the house with no problems.

This was a wonderful trip... Thank you Iain & Di!